How to burn a CELA DAISY audiobook or magazine to a CD

Overview

If you wish to access CELA audio content using players capable of reading DAISY or MP3 CDs, you can burn your own DAISY CDs by copying titles from CELA in the DAISY audio format on writable CDs.

General considerations

Only use writable CDs, not DVDs, to ensure compatibility with DAISY players.
These instructions work for books smaller than 700 MB. Most CELA titles fit in this category. If the book is larger, it will not fit on a single CD.
DAISY CDs cannot have folders burned to them. Only files.

Basic instructions

Whether on Windows or Mac, here are the basic steps.

Download the title from the CELA web page in the DAISY audio zip format.
Locate and unzip the zip file.
Open the folder containing the extracted book.
Select all files in that folder and copy them to the CD. Important! Do not copy the folder containing the book, only the files.

Detailed instructions for Windows

There are multiple ways to accomplish the task of burning a DAISY CD. We will outline one which is the most likely to work on various versions of Windows without any additional software.

Insert a blank writable CD in your drive.
Download the CELA title from the web page in the DAISY audio (Zip) format. For more instructions, see How to Download a DAISY title to your computer.
Locate the zip file you have downloaded and right click or press Shift+10 to open a context menu.
Select Extract all files. By default, this creates a folder at the same location of the zip file.
Open the folder with the extracted files. Note that you may have already automatically been placed inside this folder when extraction was completed.
Select all files inside this folder by pressing CTRL+A or clicking Select all.
Right-click or press Shift+F10.
From the context menu select Send to submenu. (Note that on Windows 11, this option might be located under the Show more submenu.)
Choose Burn to [Name of drive with blank CD].
A dialogue should pop up, inviting you to choose between using the CD like a USB flash drive or with other CD players. Choose With a CD/DVD player to ensure best compatibility with various players. Here you can also optionally enter a CD title.
The files are copied, and you will be informed that files are ready to be burned to CD.
In file explorer, locate the drive containing the CD and right-click on its name or press Shift+F10.
Select Burn to Disc. (Note that on Windows 11 this option might be located under the Show more submenu.)
The Burn to Disc dialogue opens where you can optionally set a CD title, and other recording settings. You can leave these unchanged and just press Next.
You might be asked to choose if you want to create an audio CD or a data CD. Choose Data to create a DAISY CD.
When copying is completed, a dialogue box opens. You can either simply press Finish or optionally check the checkbox for making multiple CD copies of the book.

Detailed instructions for Mac

Insert a blank writable CD in your drive. It will show up in finder as a volume.
Download the CELA title from the web page in the DAISY audio (Zip) format. For more instructions, see How to Download a DAISY title to your computer.
Locate the downloaded file. It may already show up as a folder that you can open. If not, double-click on the file or press Command+O to extract the files from the zip into a new folder.
Open the folder with the files contained in the zip archive and select all files by pressing Command+A.
Drag or copy the files to the volume containing the blank CD.
Go to the volume with the CD and, from the File menu, select Burn to Disc.
You will have the option of naming the disc and choosing recording speed. Default is fine. Select Burn.
You will be notified when the operation is complete, and the disc may automatically eject.